Flueric logic devices have, since their introduction in 1959, been limited to three distinct categories. The coanda effect or wall attachment devices, the turbulence amplifiers and the impact modulators. Each of these devices operated at some stage in the turbulent flow regime, and all but the turbulence amplifiers require considerable continuous operating power in the order of 0.5 watts. The necessity of a continuous supply of fluid makes fluerics at best an unattractive choice when considering large, complex or mobile circuitry. Because of this, much effort has been expended in lowering the power consumption of flueric logic devices. One such attempt resulted in a laminar NOR gate that operated at several milliwatts of power but with a fairly low fanout of about 3. It became apparent that low power was synonymous with laminar flow. Several further studies of laminar wall attachment showed that one could obtain a Coanda type flow even in the laminar mode; however, no practical flueric devices were forthcoming.
At the same time that the search was proceeding for low power logic devices, much progress was being made in the development of laminar proportional amplifiers. It has been shown that a laminar proportional amplifier can exhibit dynamic ranges and signal to noise ratios of several orders of magnitude greater than comparable turbulent devices, along with improved gain characteristics. As these amplifiers were being developed, it became of interest to increase the input resistance so that it would essentially operate in a completely differential control pressure mode at zero control flow (e.g., infinite power gain).
A primary object of this invention is, therefore, to provide a flueric laminar amplifier that does not use the Coanda effect.
Another object of this invention is to provide a bi-stable flueric digital amplifier which operates efficiently at low power.
Yet an additional object of the invention is to provide a bi-stable flueric laminar amplifier having a high gain and a high signal to noise ratio.
These and other objects, aspects and advantages of the invention will become more readily apparent with respect to the detailed specification and appended claims.